


The Arson Investigator's White Whale

by acf151



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-06
Packaged: 2020-01-22 21:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acf151/pseuds/acf151
Summary: Every cop has his adversary, his white whale. Be it a small-time crook that is always just ahead of the law, or a serial killer that is just careful enough not to leave damning evidence, every cop has one. Mine is Harry Dresden.





	The Arson Investigator's White Whale

Originally posted in 2011 at the Dresden Files Kinkmeme: http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2675.html?thread=2571379#cmt2571379

The Arson Investigator's White Whale (1/1)  
Tags: gen

Every cop has his adversary, his white whale. Be it a small-time crook that is always just ahead of the law, or a serial killer that is just careful enough not to leave damning evidence, every cop has one. Mine is Harry Dresden.

Once a year, occasionally more, a man fitting his description is the last person seen leaving the scene of a fire that consumes a building. There are 8,562 vintage Beetles in the greater Chicago area – none of them are so unique as his. That too will be reported within the vicinity of the fire. Many of the witnesses will be intoxicated or suffering from mental lapses due to shock, I’m told. Their reports are otherwise far too sensational for any other explanation. I have seen fire do many things in my career, but it does not shine blue and silver and is not heralded by screams.

There will be no wires, no accelerant, and no convenient cigarette butts on which to place the blame. These fires will apparently begin on inflammable concrete, basements of houses, and even, one time, melted a glass wall into a building. The only connection is Harry Dresden.

I can’t figure out how he does it.

It doesn’t help matters that my whale is sleeping with a lieutenant on the Force. She just brushes me aside. It really doesn’t help matters that Chicago’s crime lord, Johnnie Marcone refuses to allow me to investigate. Most insurance companies would have beat down my door after so many of their buildings were destroyed or damaged. Not his company. They sent a representative requesting I quietly close the case, no one was hurt in any case, and there is no reason to give the crime lord an excuse not to pay his increased premiums. Vultures. He got his the next year when he lost an office building and a house. Dresden must have hit the Shed then too; the debris patterns were all but identical.

There was one year, I had peace. After the Red Cross burned down, Dresden saw a burn unit doctor for his melted hand. Greg’s an old friend. Apparently someone learned that homemade napalm can explode and stick at the most, inopportune times. And there was peace in Chicago.

And then he torched an abandoned garage to celebrate the occasion.

When his office building blew sky high thanks to the C4 that the building had been laced with, everyone was so upset. Who could have done this? Where was next? Again, I tried to tell them. Not even IA would listen to me. The FBI was called in. They actually brought Dresden in for questioning. Who says having friends in Washington is a bad thing?

I will catch him. I will. He must be stopped.


End file.
